Rebecca Shelton lives in Kansas City. She was a reporter and editor for 18 years for many newspapers and business publications in the metro area. She won more than three dozen top journalism awards for news, features and investigative stories and served as president of the Kansas City Press Club. Shelton started and was publisher of her own business publication "The Johnson County Business Ledger." She is now a content management specialist for an international finance corporation where she clicks radio buttons.
Bottom Line: Rebecca Shelton, former editor at the Kansas City Kansan newspaper, discusses a recent story that highlighted how her former newspaper has dwindled down to a one-person operation. She graciously agreed to write a column discussing her days at the Kansan and the state of the print media of today. 10-12-2009 FORMER KANSAN EDITOR DISCUSSES THE NEWSPAPER ENVIRONMENT OF TODAY By Rebecca Shelton I read on the Internet The Kansas City Kansan newspaper is down to one man. Actually, it’s not a newspaper at all now, but a Web site. I worked at TheKansan a few years back. I started as a reporter and later became editor. My job at TheKansan came after the fifth or sixth lay-off, or maybe I was fired, I can't remember. I went through a lot of reporter and editor jobs at many newspapers in Kansas City as each one downsized or closed its doors, due to lack of advertising and loss of subscribers. When I worked at TheKansan, the newspaper offices were still housed in The Kansan Building in downtown KCK, the same building it had been in for 80 years. The once big, bustling enterprise was already reduced to a handful of us. Our desks took up only a small space of the first floor. The upper floor used to be filled with salespeople and administrative types. I was told TheKansan even used to broadcast a radio station from that floor. I went up there one day and walked around the graveyard of file cabinets, stacks of papers and empty, dusty desks pushed to one side to make room for a treadmill. The Kansan also printed its own paper in the basement. I went down there one day and saw a deep, dark, cement cavern that echoed. The presses had already been sold and it was empty. It smelled like ink, I remember, or some kind of chemical. I didn’t like The Kansan at first. I had applied only because I could not find any other openings at any other newspapers in Kansas City. Newspaper jobs were drying up. But when the KCK mayor refused to answer certain questions about the Speedway financing and tax abatements, I knew I was on the right track. When a man walked in off the street and told his story about not being able to find work, and how his family was suffering, I got to see firsthand what print truly can do for the soul. I mean -- where else can you read about your son's little league scores? Seeing such a tiny detail of your life published, somehow, made it official. You could cut it out and hang it on your refrigerator until the paper turned yellow and fell apart. Seeing it in print made it real. You could read about the death of your neighbor, who you may never have known personally, and the life he or she lived, and in which cemetery that person will spend eternity in. If you grew the Biggest Tomato or a squash with the face of Jesus, you knew where to take it and get its picture on the front page. I loved my job and wrote some of my best articles. I won a couple awards, and my records and I were subpoenaed after I reported on some funny business with HUD money and the city leaders. The First Amendment triumphed in the courtroom and I did not have to reveal any sources or information. These Kansan-type local stories won’t show up in the bigger papers. I worked briefly for The Kansas City Star as an intern, and I remember wanting to cover a small protest of some sort, but my boss said unless 100 people showed up, The Star wouldn't cover the event. With that as the rule of thumb for deciding what stories get covered, what happens in your community isn't going to be written about. You're not going to know what happened at your city council meeting unless you attend. Even though my time at The Star was many years ago, the rule is still used today by default because The Star has but a tiny handful of reporters left in that great big beautiful glass house, and a lot goes on in Kansas City. The Star is going to cover the stories that will have interest to the most people. It turns out, though, that there is a place for your child’s little league scores. Your child’s little league scores plus information about every single player and game of the season is available on a page, in addition to Facebook and MySpace. Your neighbor’s obituary is also available online in several places, such as the funeral home, where the family can post whatever they want to say, however long and sentimental, and even allow others to add to it, making the remembrance available to a wider range and the funeral wishes, dates and times known to all. "Biggest Tomato" is good to Google, and so is "Ugliest Squash." Even investigative reporting is still alive and well in so many locations and is not limited to journalists, to some extent, as the community at large has all kinds of opportunities to get into places and people reporters don’t even have access to. Any man, woman or child with Internet access can certainly have a say on their own Web page or any number of places for feedback, not to mention Twittering. For those who like the look of the newspaper, a "typewriter" font is available for use in most Web and word processing applications. Anyone can read the minutes of the latest city council meeting, from the city's own Web site to watchdog sites. The day came, while I was still at The Kansan, that we were moved to a corner of the basement of a bank out west on State Avenue. The Kansan Building was sold and was going to be converted to lofts. The Kansan's last remains -- an original antique-looking typesetter machine -- didn't go with us because it was part of the sale. When I was eventually fired from The Kansan, I left with the belief that the newspaper had accomplished what journalism was supposed to do -- shine light on everything. I felt like I was doing something worthwhile to the community and personally rewarding. Biggest tomato and all. Certainly the spirit of newspapers lives on, even if it’s not printed on newsprint anymore. Still, when I saw the photo of the one lone guy running The Kansan, I had one thought. I wished it were me.
10-12-2009
OUTSTANDING...
"Outstanding piece from Rebecca Shelton r/e the ultimate demise of the Kansas City Kansan and the place community newspapers hold in the respective communities they serve. Excellent work. Thanks for running that." -----Michael Bushnell (northenews@aol.com)
10-13-2009 LAST LINE... "Good piece. But that last line...wow! I don't think I've read a more poignant line in years. If she didn't have a tear in her eye when she wrote that, she can borrow one of mine." ---- Mike T.
10-13-2009 TALENT "What a shame to waste talent like this! I wish her the best at whatever she does...wherever she does it." ---John Garlinger
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